On Media

ABC News responds to tea party affiliate

By DYLAN BYERS

07/25/2012 03:41 PM EDT

ABC News Senior Vice President Kerry Smith today reiterated that the network was taking full responsibility for last week's inaccurate report suggesting a possible link between the Colorado theater shooting and the tea party.

In a written response to the Gotham Tea Party, a New York City-based tea party affiliate, Smith rebutted accusations that the network's apology for the report was "a transparent effort to avoid responsibility."

"With all respect, we do not see it that way at all," Smith wrote in a letter to Erix Dixon, Gotham's chief legal correspondent, who wrote to ABC News earlier this week. "By apologizing clearly and publicly, we certainly intend to take, and believe we have taken full responsibility for the error in judgment that led to this information being broadcast."

"Please be assured that this matter has been addressed most seriously at all levels of ABC News in an effort to avoid similar mistakes in the future,' Smith concluded.

In Dixon's initial letter, he claimed that Tea Party affiliates around the country had been "slandered and defamed" by ABC News and Brian Ross, the investigative reporter who made the incorrect report.